I know that they will be frowned on by true carpenters, but for somebody that does a couple of small projects each year, are B&D power tools OK? I have a 12 volt cordless drill and I just bought an 18v trimmer and blower. I have an 18v Ryobi cordless drill already, but I'd like to stick with one brand for everything. Should I just use B&D for the yard tools stuff and stick with Ryobi for my power tools, or is it safe for me to start buying the B&D 18v tools and sell the Ryobi?

Well for power tools I would highly recommend Ryobi or DeWALT. Black and Decker created DeWALT back in 1995, but they are not the same. DeWALT uses higher quality parts in their power tools, where as B&D uses plastic parts in a lot. With what I have seen from Ryobi, their power tools hardly ever let anyone down. My personal opinion, stick with Ryobi for your power tools, unless you find a great deal on a DeWALT. Use B&D for your yard stuff.
Brandon
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Power Tool Parts and Tool Repair

I have a B&D miter saw and angle grinder. I have put both through the mill and they still work great. Used the miter saw remodeling a few houses, and a lot of other Stuff. I have used steel cutting blades on it and have cut a while lot of steel for things on my jeep. It is probably over 10 years old i'd say, and it still works great. I only wish it had a bigger blade. 10" is just not quite enough for cutting certain things sometimes. As for my angle grinder, i have used it a lot this year, and it's not very old, but it works great. For $30 I wouldn't take it back. It has no signs of wearing out. But that's just my .02
Also, I have a skil brand skill saw and it works great too. I haven't had a chance to really push it to the limit yet, but it runs great.
As for milwakee cordless tools, I have a set of those, 18volt, Drill, sawzall, skill saw, and light, and they work great. I have worked them over pretty darn hard. My only complaint with them is the batteries, they seem to give out prematurely and I gotta buy new ones, and they aren't cheap. It is about $90 for like 2 batteries.
Hope this helps. Klinton

I would suggest you to buy black and decker blender parts for these kind of works... I am telling this because I have been in a same situation like you few days back.. And I retained my B&D and now I can do whatever I wanted to. So take a wise decision.

I've owned a constrution company for over 15 years. We started with Dewalt tools and everyone of them failed shortly. Battery failed, switches were breaking all the time, brushes burned out And the batterys cost way to much.
We now use Ryobi 18V drills and impact drills. In 15 years out of 10 batterys and 8 differant tools I've had two batterys fail. One drilled failed after being dropped off of a 40 ft. ladder onto concrete. The baterys cost 1/2 as much as a Dewault battery.
These are tools that get used everyday and they still held up. I bought a 12" Ryobi compound miter saw 10 years ago and it still works fine for cutting stud and 4 X 4's.